Praying through Pain

Chuck was a hard working, self-made man in the oil business.  He was not much in church because of his work. He had had a praying mother and had a praying wife.  When I really got to know him, he did not have much else.  Chuck's company, that he had built from the ground up, had been "taken over" by some men who had been investors.

I would go visit Chuck, a World War II veteran, in his declining health.  Someone had briefed me on the loss of his company and what a shame it was.  I did not have to ask him about it, he told me.  As I was about to leave after one of my first visits with him in his home, I asked him about prayer, "How can I pray for you?" was my question.  His answer floored me.

"You can pray with me about the guys who stole my company," he said.  I settled in to hear the story and mentally shifted from 'I am about to leave' to 'I'm going to be here a while.'  I asked, "So how do you pray for them?"  Chuck replied, "Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me."  That was not the response I was expecting. 

He went on to tell the story, but mainly how he had found comfort in daily praying the Lord's Prayer and that one line about asking for and giving forgiveness how that phrase had changed his life.  "I have to pray to forgive them every day," he said, "because I think about it everyday.  And every day God takes the hurt away."

After I prayed with Chuck and was driving back to my church, I hit me that Chuck probably did not know a lot about the Bible but he knew that prayer. He probably has gotten more mileage and more good out of those simple words than anyone I have met.  He found a way to pray though the pain.  God was healing him emotionally and spiritually even as he struggled physically.

God's power to use our prayer in dealing with our pain is amazingly simple, if we are simple enough to keep praying through it.  Chuck taught me a lesson about prayer and pain that I am still trying to learn.  Maybe you are too.  This Sunday, let's come work on it together as we look at David's prayer in his pain in Psalm 55.  Let's keep praying and keep on overcoming the pain.

for the journey...

Tim